Posts Tagged ‘Travel’
BANGKOK, 2 January 2012 (NNT) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is set to meeting representatives from a number of governments, in hopes of a success in convincing them to remove travel advisories against Thailand
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Hopes to transform the image of Pattaya received a major boost when the popular Thai resort won the Golf Destination of 2012 Award for Australasia and Asia. Mayor Itthiphol Kunplume accepted the award from Peter Walton, president and chief executive of the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO).
Pattaya fought off competition from New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand’s Hua Hin and Phuket to finish first in the voting by several hundred global tour operators of IAGTO. This is the first time that a city, rather than a country, has won the much sought-after trophy. Previous winners have included Malaysia and Thailand.
Accepting the award, Itthiphol said, “Pattaya is already known as a resort destination, but this recognition will give us a higher profile and elevate us to the position as a top international golf destination.” He added that Pattaya is increasingly a family-orientated resort and that 500,000 rounds of golf are now played annually at 20 golf courses covering the eastern seaboard, compared with 200,000 rounds three years ago.
IAGTO president and chief executive Peter Walton said, “Pattaya won the award because our members found quality golf courses, good management, great service, value for money and, vitally, local agents and a tourist board very supportive of golf players.”
The golf award is seen as a major endorsement of the city’s plan to encourage overseas business, conventions, exhibitions and sports events. Several major golf tournaments have been held in recent years in Pattaya -area courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Pete Dye and Gary Player. The Eastern Seaboard Golf Management Association (EGA) organizes many events including the annual Singha Chonburi-Pattaya Golf Festival and the unique Thai Caddy Championship.
IAGTO has 1,700 members in 90 countries and its members are responsible for 80% of all golf packages sold worldwide.
A giant airplane that can in mid-flight launch a rocket carrying cargo and humans into orbit is the future of space travel, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said.
The first test flight of the ambitious venture by Allen’s new company Stratolaunch Systems is not scheduled until 2015, but partners in the project vowed it would revolutionize orbital travel in the post-space shuttle era.
Using engines from six Boeing 747 jets, the biggest airliner ever built would tote a rocket made by SpaceX and be able to launch payloads, satellites, and some day, humans, into low-Earth orbit, said Allen, 58.
While he declined to say how much he was investing, Allen said it would be more than he spent on SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 was the first commercial craft to complete a suborbital flight and reportedly cost about $ 25 million to develop.
“For the first time since John Glenn, America cannot fly its own astronauts into space,” Allen told reporters, referring to the US space shuttle’s retirement this year and the first American to orbit the Earth aboard Mercury 7 in 1962.
“Today we stand at the dawn of a radical change in the space launch industry,” Allen said, vowing greater flexibility than ground-based rocket launches and better cost effectiveness for cargo and manned missions to space.
“It will keep America at the forefront of space exploration and give tomorrow’s children something to search for in the night sky and dream about.”
Designs for the massive jet with a wingspan greater than a football field, a collaboration with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan who designed SpaceShipOne, are at an advanced stage and a hangar is under construction in the Mojave desert.
“It is relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough,” said Rutan.
Talks are under way about potential take-off points, since the plane would need a 12,000 foot (3,650 meter) runway, available at larger airports and air force bases.
The aircraft would “use six 747 engines, have a gross weight of more than 1.2 million pounds (544,000 kilograms) and a wingspan of more than 380 feet (117 meters),” press materials said.
The plane would take off and while in flight, deploy the rocket and send cargo into low-Earth orbit. The first test flight could take place in 2015, and the first launch could happen by 2016.
Allen and Rutan’s project, SpaceShipOne, was followed by Virgin Galactic’s commercial suborbital SpaceShipTwo Program.
Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board of the Alabama-based Stratolaunch, said the project furthers the goal of making space travel a common endeavor.
“We believe this technology has the potential to someday make spaceflight routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground launched rockets,” Griffin said.
Advantages include the flexibility to launch from a larger number of locations, and potential cargo markets include the communications satellite industry, and NASA and Department of Defense unmanned scientific satellites, Griffin said.
Allen’s announcement adds a new company to the race to replace the US space shuttle by offering an alternative made by private industry for carrying humans to low-Earth orbit.
The end of the space shuttle after 30 years has left Russia as the sole nation capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station aboard its Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost per seat that will rise to $ 63 million in the coming years.
“So if you can come up with — which we believe we can — a manned version of this, we can be very, very competitive with those kinds of fees,” said Allen, who resigned from Microsoft after being diagnosed with cancer in 1983.
Three subcontractors on the project include Scaled Composites which is building the aircraft, SpaceX which is contributing a multi-stage booster rocket based on its Falcon 9, and Dynetics which is mating the aircraft to the booster.
SpaceX, run by PayPal founder Elon Musk, has already successfully test-launched its Dragon capsule into orbit and back and is planning a cargo and berthing mission to the International Space Station in February.
“You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill and this is a dream I am very excited about seeing come to fruition,” Allen said.
Visitors to the northern provinces of Ha Giang and Tuyen Quang will enjoy the colorful costumes of women from the Pa Then ethnic minority.
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